I went back and tightened the camouflage a little using Tom's (@tcinla) method using thread and tape to get a consistant demarcation between colors. It works pretty well, although I need more practice with it. Trying to work with tape, thread, and a model is like herding cats, and I am glad there were no injuries.

I painted some of the small items, such as wingtip navigation lights. I sanded the anti-collision beacon off the fuselage while I was building, so I replaced it with a small bit of round plastic painted red. There are small round bits on the top of each wing near the wing tip. I assume they are lights, possibly position lights or signalling lights, but I am not sure. I have checked the references that I have and found them in many photos, but nothing that will identify their purpose. The light that is farthest inboard on each wing appears to be white, so that is what color they are now. The others are simply dark in the black and white photos, so they could be a number of colors. If anyone knows what they are and what color they are supposed to be, I would appreciate a little guidance.

Tomorrow I plan to shoot a little clear gloss in preparation for the decals. Cheers everyone.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Hi Louis (@lgardner): Those are indeed Kingfishers in the photo. It's like watching a show on Japanese dive bombers on the History Channel and they are showing pictures of Dauntlesses in flight. I don't think I need float photos (say that 3 times really fast) right now. The 3d printed set that I got has a correctly sized float, as well as a new cowling and engine. Your photos are really cool. Florida had a bunch of training bases during WW2, and it is sometimes really hard to find photos of training planes back then. I guess all the photos went to combat planes.

Thanks, John (@j-healy). I don't really like to freehand camouflage, so it seems like I am always trying to tighten or neaten the paint. I am glad to be done with most of the painting.

Painting looks superb, my friend @gblair! No clue for the extra lights, looks like they are ID lights of some form.

I would vote for dark blue for the mysterious lights: P-40s, at least some early versions, featured similar mysterious lights bilaterally of the fuselage, aft of the cockpit.

They were likely serving the same purpose, my friend @eb801: What the P-40 featured bilaterally of the fuselage, were likely located at the wings at the Hellcats and corsairs? In a few forums they are referred as formation lights. All sources state to have them painted dark blue clear paint.

We took our 3-year old granddaughter to a Scooby Doo Haunted Mansion exhibit at a nearby museum today, but I did have a little time to add the decals. Since I was trying to replicate the markings of a specific plane in one Jim Sullivan's books, I had to find the markings I needed in my spares. Nothing too demanding, just some national markings, an identification number, and a couple of miscellaneous other markings. I found two sets of national markings that I could use, both from the 1970s. The first set was a total loss and completely shattered when they hit the water. The second set worked perfectly. I used MicroSol and MicroSet on them, and they conformed perfectly. Tomorrow we should be ready for some clear flat.

I did a little work on some of the small parts that still need to be added. I planned to use the two engine exhausts that came with the kit. The shape looked good, but they were molded solid, with no hint they were supposed to be a tube. I decided to hollow these exhausts, a plan that had disaster written all over it. Each exhaust is less than a quarter inch in size, so there isn't much to hang on to while hollowing the inside. The very least I expected was having the Dremel launch at least one of these pipes into the next time zone. I also had a thought that one of these was going to leave the Dremel at something near the speed of sound, go straight through my glasses, and imbed itself in my eye. None of these bad things happened, and the hollowing exercise actually worked pretty well. It seems like my Karma is in sync with the universe, so things seem good for the rest of the build.

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Excellent job on the exhaustsvand ditto decaling, my friend @gblair!